Modern metal beverage containers have printed designs and words on their exposed cylindrical sidewall. The words and designs generally consist of trademarks, trade dress, nutritional information, volume, and any other information that the metal beverage container manufacturer and the beverage manufacturers may want to communicate to consumers, competitors and others.
The most common printing type performed on metal beverage containers is the dry rotary offset-type which is made by a specific printer for this purpose. This type of printing enables one to apply a plurality of colors onto metallic metal beverage containers. Such printing is carried out on metal beverage container bodies during their manufacturing process. This process includes a sequence of cutting, cup forming, drawing and ironing, the printing itself and subsequent necking of the open end until the metal beverage container body reaches its final desired shape. The metal beverage container body is then filled with a beverage and a can lid is attached to the open end of the filled can body.
To better understand the field of the present invention, a prior art printing apparatus or a printer, as it is usually known, is illustrated in FIG. 1.
The apparatus 1 of FIG. 1 includes a plurality of components, wherein six ink cartridges 2a-2f are present. These cartridges 2a-2f are supplied with colored ink that is applied onto a cylindrical side wall of the metal beverage container body. The printing apparatus 1 is provided with an ink cartridge 2a-2f for each color that one wishes to apply onto the metal beverage container body. For example, if it is desired to print a metal beverage container with three colors, three of the six ink-cartridge 2a-2f should be supplied with the necessary corresponding colored ink. It should be noted that in this type of equipment, there is a limitation on the number of colors which can be applied to the metal beverage container that is dependent on the number of ink-cartridges available. In other words, if ten different colors are desired, it is necessary that the printing apparatus should have at least ten ink-cartridges 2a-2f. 
The ink cartridges 2a-2f supply ink to printing plates 3a-3f, which have the finished art to be printed onto the metal beverage container. This finished art may be a text, a figure or any type of graphic which one wishes to make on a metal beverage container. Thus, it is very important to position the printing plate correctly relative to the metal beverage container and the ink cartridges 2a-2f. For this purpose, a printing plate, for example, 3a, which is generally produced from a magnetic material, has a precise alignment on a plate cylinder 4a. 
This alignment or registration is achieved via guide-bores in the printing plate (not shown in the figure), which are aligned to guide-pins on the plate cylinder 4a. The plate cylinder is a substantially cylindrical body to which the printing plate is attached and rotates therewith. This is made possible as the outer surface of the plate cylinder is formed by a magnetic material that attracts the printing plate 3a and keeps it in the desired position.
It is also important to point out that the finished art present on the printing plate 4a is in relief, so that it transfers the ink supplied by the ink cartridge 2a to a transfer blanket 5a. This transfer blanket 5a is an ink transferring means between the printing plate 3a and the metal beverage container to be printed.
Thus, the relief on the printing plate 3a comes into contact with the transfer blanket 5a, transferring only the ink that is present thereon to the transfer blanket 5a. This is carried out by rotation of the printing plate 3a, which transfers the ink present in relief to the transfer blanket 5a, which is fixed on the transfer blanket drum 6, which has a rotation synchronized with (i) the metal beverage container bodies to be printed, (ii) the positioning of the transfer blankets 5a-51 that are on the surface of such a transfer blanket drum 6, and (iii) the printing plates 3a-3f. 
The synchronization between aforementioned elements makes it possible to decorate the metal beverage container bodies in a quite precise manner. This is of the utmost importance in metal beverage container printing. There should be no overlapping of the print on the metal beverage container when it receives more than one finished art on its surface. In other words, the finished art of a first printing plate 3a will transfer ink only to a predetermined area of the transfer blankets 5a-5l, whereby a second printing plate 3b-3f will transfer ink only on its surface to another area on the transfer blankets 5a-5l that did not receive ink from the first printing plate 3a, and so on. This is dependent on the number of printing colors on the metal beverage containers. There is generally no overlap of inked areas on the finished. Thus, printing of an entire metal beverage container cylindrical surface without ink overlapping is possible using this type of rotary dry offset printing apparatus.
In this regard, it should be stressed that there is transfer of more than one finished art with a different color to one or more than one transfer blanket 5a-5l present on the transfer blanket drum 6 from the respective printing plates 3a-3f that are in communication with the respective ink-cartridges. Hence, upon continuous rotation of the transfer blanket drum, the blanket comes into contact with the metal beverage container cylindrical surface to be printed. Thus, each blanket fully decorates one metal beverage container body upon rotation of the drum.
It should be understood that each of the transfer blankets 5a-5l can receive, on its surface, a plurality of different colors coming from more than one printing plate 3a-3f, but the transfer blankets 5a-5l do not have any overlapping of finished art with different colors.
The metal beverage containers to be printed may be colorful, but when they are examined in detail, one can see that with this type of printing, there is no color overlapping. Despite the proximity of the different colors that are on the metal beverage container surface, there will always be a small space between the printing of different colors.
It is also important to note that, when one wishes to change the finished art present on the metal beverage containers that are being printed, it is necessary to interrupt the production, that is, the printing apparatus 1 would be necessarily stopped. Thus, production of metal beverage containers must be stopped. Such stoppage is necessary because there may be the need to change the printing color of the metal beverage container, or to change one product of metal beverage container to a different metal beverage container product.
For example, when one is carrying out a type of metal beverage container printing for Product A and wishes to begin printing metal beverage containers for Product B, the finished art will also change, and it is necessary to interrupt the printing process. In short, with the existing process and equipment, it is only possible to achieve one type of finished art printed on the metal beverage container with the same printing apparatus. If it is necessary or desired to change the print on the metal beverage container, the production will necessarily have to be interrupted, which for economic reasons should be minimized as much as possible.
This can be easily observed through the order or magnitude of metal beverage container printing, which is very significant. With the present-day pieces of equipment, one can print approximately 2.5 million metal beverage containers in a single day.
Thus, at present, there are a number of studies with a view to minimize, as far as possible, the stoppages of this type of equipment, so that the production will not be interrupted. It is noted that these stoppages are, as a rule, necessary, because the same production line is intended for cans with the most varied finished arts. For example, metal beverage containers intended for beer and metal beverage container intended for soft drinks are produced on the same printing machine.
In turn, in the face of the significant amount of production of metal beverage containers and the substantial printing speed, the metal beverage containers that have been printed are packed for delivery to beverage manufacturers. Then, as an example, when there is production of a given type of metal beverage container, the produced metal beverage containers are packed on pallets, wherein each of the pallets have about 6,000-15,000 units of printed metal beverage containers, all having identical print designs, that is, with the same finished art printed on them.
Thus, the metal beverage container manufacturers' customers, mainly companies that produce beverages, receive loadings of these pallets. The beverage companies fill the metal beverage containers with beverages and deliver them to wholesalers and retailers, as for example, super-markets. In other words, the supermarkets will also receive a large number of cans with beverages having the same finished art printed thereon.
FIG. 2 shows the size of a standard-pallet containing about 8,500 metal beverage containers. As one can see in this figure, there is a man of medium height beside the pallet that contains the metal beverage containers. From this, it is possible to have a quite significant idea of the number of metal beverage containers being produced by a production line (it should be repeated: 2.5 million cans a day). Following this understanding, one must understand the significant logistics present in the distribution and production of metal beverage containers of this type.
However, as set forth above, the same sequence of production of metal beverage containers has necessarily the same print arrangement, that is, the metal beverage containers are virtually identical.
If there is a desire to make metal beverage containers with different print arrangements, it is necessary, in the prior art, to interrupt the production line in order to change the printing plates 3a-3f. 
In this regard, the beverage market is greatly influenced by the marketing of the companies of this business segment. Thus, the print arrangements or finished arts on metal beverage containers are considered extremely important to such companies. This is because the consumer is often influenced to buy a given product by the visual aspect brought by the print on the metal beverage containers.
This influence in the decision of the consumer has put more and more pressure on the marketing sectors of the beverage companies, because they require the launching of new and different print arrangements and designs. However, despite the efforts of these sectors, the can manufacturers have significant limitations in the ability to be flexible, namely due to the fact that the same type of metal beverage container produced in the same series (in the production of the can or in the packing of the product) necessarily has always the same finished art. This is not related to the limitation of the professionals involved in the creation of the layout or print arrangement of the metal beverage containers, but to the fact that the same production metal beverage container series without manufacturing interruption will necessarily have the same printed art.
More recently, as described in, a process for which enables manufacturers to print different finished arts onto sequentially, i.e. directly consecutively, produced cans has been introduced. This printing takes place without interruption of the production.
Using this method, it is possible to obtain, at the end of the can production line, pallets with different finished arts or print arrangements, i.e., instead of having the same sequence of can production with equal prints, it is possible to have cans with different print arrangements, which has a substantially significant commercial effect. This is because it is possible for the same commercial establishment to receive cans, containing the same product, but in cans which are different from each other.
This becomes very important because there is the possibility of a wide range of different creations for the marketing sectors of the companies that produce beverages. Thus, for instance, if there is a determined promotion or festivity of great magnitude, the disclosure of WO enables the production of cans from the same production series, i.e. sequentially and continuously manufactured without manufacturing interruption, to have different print arrangements, as for example cartoons, animal drawings, names of people, country names, or still of sports activities. In short, the print arrangements or finished arts may be of different kinds and depend basically on the respective creativity of the creator of cans, since in light of the present invention there is no longer any technical limit that requires the interruption of printing to provide cans with different print arrangements or finished arts from the same uninterrupted sequence of production.
The present invention is provided to solve the problems discussed above and other problems, and to provide improvements, advantages and aspects not provided by prior apparatuses of this type. A full discussion of the features and advantages of the present invention is deferred to the following detailed description, which proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings.